When you’re travelling and making plans on the go, interesting things occur. While we were on the Safari yesterday, we got chatting to the manager of the hotel we were at and enquired about transportation to get us to Shillong. We had enquired about getting a bus and he told us, we could just step out of the hotel and stand on the main highway and hail any passing bus and it would take us to Tezpur.
So just before dinner, he came in and told us that he had a driver, a friend of his, staying the night, on his way back to Guwahati. He had dropped some passengers to Jorhat and was going back to Guwahati empty. We could pay him the bus fare, which was around Rs. 500/- for both of us and he’d be happy to drop us to Guwahati. We sealed the deal.
After a hot cup of tea, compliments of our friendly Hotel Manager, we were back on the road in the comfort of an AC Tata Indica. Driving past Tea estates, on one side and the Kaziranga National Park on the other, we bid adieu to Rhino country.
We stopped midway for a hearty breakfast and befriended our driver as we drove on. As we headed down the new section of the 4 Lane National Highway being constructed to connect the north east to West India, we came upon a huge convoy of Military Trucks, most of them with a Howitzer in tow. It was difficult to see what type of field gun this was, but my guess would be they were 155mm Howitzers.
We finally crossed the convoy and our driver dropped us on the outskirts of Guwahati at the Meghalaya-Assam border from where there was a bus stand and shared taxi stand for Shillong. We immediately got ourselves seats in a TATA SUMO, our Vitalgear Peacekeeper Rucksacks were placed and tied down on the carrier and we were on our way to Shillong. The fare was Rs. 140 per person.
Halfway to Shillong we stopped at a place which was lined with shops on both sides and we had some fruit and bought I think a dozen bottles of pickle. This place is renowned for its bamboo pickle.
After we left the midway point, it took us a couple of hours to reach Shillong, and to my amazement, we got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour as we entered the city limits. I was even more bewildered by the sights and sounds of Shillong, quite disappointed too, if I may add. I had this picture in my head of a hill station tucked away in the midst of dense forested hills and here we were in a full fledged city. Anyway we went around the main circle in the middle of town which is the main shopping area and found our hotel and settled in. it was raining and we weren’t too happy with the hotel, but what the heck, we had a good run till now, so there had to be some place that wouldn’t meet up to expectations.
We put our stuff in the room and headed out to the market place to grab a bite.
So just before dinner, he came in and told us that he had a driver, a friend of his, staying the night, on his way back to Guwahati. He had dropped some passengers to Jorhat and was going back to Guwahati empty. We could pay him the bus fare, which was around Rs. 500/- for both of us and he’d be happy to drop us to Guwahati. We sealed the deal.
After a hot cup of tea, compliments of our friendly Hotel Manager, we were back on the road in the comfort of an AC Tata Indica. Driving past Tea estates, on one side and the Kaziranga National Park on the other, we bid adieu to Rhino country.
We stopped midway for a hearty breakfast and befriended our driver as we drove on. As we headed down the new section of the 4 Lane National Highway being constructed to connect the north east to West India, we came upon a huge convoy of Military Trucks, most of them with a Howitzer in tow. It was difficult to see what type of field gun this was, but my guess would be they were 155mm Howitzers.
We finally crossed the convoy and our driver dropped us on the outskirts of Guwahati at the Meghalaya-Assam border from where there was a bus stand and shared taxi stand for Shillong. We immediately got ourselves seats in a TATA SUMO, our Vitalgear Peacekeeper Rucksacks were placed and tied down on the carrier and we were on our way to Shillong. The fare was Rs. 140 per person.
Halfway to Shillong we stopped at a place which was lined with shops on both sides and we had some fruit and bought I think a dozen bottles of pickle. This place is renowned for its bamboo pickle.
After we left the midway point, it took us a couple of hours to reach Shillong, and to my amazement, we got stuck in a traffic jam for an hour as we entered the city limits. I was even more bewildered by the sights and sounds of Shillong, quite disappointed too, if I may add. I had this picture in my head of a hill station tucked away in the midst of dense forested hills and here we were in a full fledged city. Anyway we went around the main circle in the middle of town which is the main shopping area and found our hotel and settled in. it was raining and we weren’t too happy with the hotel, but what the heck, we had a good run till now, so there had to be some place that wouldn’t meet up to expectations.
We put our stuff in the room and headed out to the market place to grab a bite.
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